DEVELOPMENT AND
PRODUCTION OF POLYMER ELECTROLYTE MEMBRANE FUEL CELL MODULE COMPONENTS
In order to compensate world's energy need without causing environment
pollution, use of clean and renewable energy sources and studies performed
in this field has rapidly increased. Fuel cells which use hydrogen as
fuel are one of the alternative technologies that are being studied
extensively in the last years. Fuel cells are energy transforming systems
working with high capacity and by this system, electrical energy is
produced from hydrogen's chemical energy.
Fuel cells can be designed in different capacities such as small enough
to compensate the requirements of the mobile phones or big enough to
produce power to satisfy a city. For that reason, they have a wide industrial
usage potency ranging from transportation vehicles to industrial applications.
Fuel cell market is estimated to reach up to 1-2 billions of dollars
in a few years time and (as the vehicle practices become widespread)
up to 20 billions dollars in a ten year time.
Due to increasing population and growth, Turkey is compensating its
primary and electrical energy demand by a program based mainly on import
and usage of fossil fuels which have unfavourable effects on human and
environmental health. It is thought that in order to compensate the
energy demand in Turkey without causing environmental pollution, creating
an energy program considering the developments on clean energy production
and within this programme, giving future's energy hydrogen and hydrogen
using fuel cells the place they deserve are essential.
With the aim of bringing the fuel cell technology to Turkey and to develop
useful products with high added value by the facilities that this technology
provide, Ford-Otosan, Arcelik, Tofas, Turkey Technology Development
Foundation (TTGV) and TUBITAK Marmara Research Center (MRC) have started
a project and for the first time in Turkey have signed for "Strategical
Collaboration Before Competition Project".
Between 10th November 2003 - 9th July 2004, "Development of Fuel Cell
Technologies for Clean Energy Production" project was performed.This
project was the first step of "Fuel Cell Technology Frame Project" by
Ford-Otosan, Arcelik, Tofas, TTGV and TUBıTAK . Due to this project,
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Formation of the collective study group that is going to maintain the collaboration of industry and Research Center,
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Learning about the fuel cell technology in application scale.
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Increasing the ability of professionals working on fuel cell technologies have been performed and,
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A contribution to develop the "collaboration before competition" discipline has been made.
Also, within this project, experience on building fuel cell test system and performing typical tests of kilowatt scaled fuel cell modules has been achieved also components and sub-systems that are useful for science and that generate added value for Turkish industry and economy have also been investigated.
By the end of 1st Step Project;
there has been an undivided opinion on starting the 2nd step of" Fuel
Cell Technology Frame Project" which will use extensively the data
achieved in the 1st Step Project and which also targets producing
fuel cell module by local facilities. The firms Aygaz and Demirdokum
from Koc Holding have also been included in the consortium of the
1st Step Project.
Only in the year 2003; 2800, excluding the small fuel cells for educational
purposes, fuel cell systems were produced. The estimation that by
the year 2010 more than 100.000 fuel cell vehicle (Reference: US Freedom
Car) will be produced, clearly shows the importance of this technology.
For this target, the project "Production and Development of Polymer
Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Module Components" which was signed
on 10th November 2004 as the 2nd step of "Fuel Cell Technology Frame
Project" has critical importance.
Within this project, production and development studies for the components which constitute approximately 65% of the fuel cell module cost are performed in TUBITAK Marmara Research Center. The main target of this project is to develop the polymer membrane fuel cell components and perform prototype production in order to produce a unique fuel cell module in Turkey by using local facilities. With this aim, project was divided mainly into 4 working packages namely, Updating Literature Scanning on Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies, Production of Bipolar Plate and Final Plate, Production of Membrane Electrolyte Unit and Electrocatalyzer Production and Related Tests.
By this agreement "Strategical Collaboration Before Competition" which was formed within the 1st step is going to be strengthened and its content is going to be enlarged. In this direction, Turkey's 7 large corporations will move collectively in order to develop fuel cell technology and to bring fuel cell technology to Turkey.
At the end of the project;
data, facilities and unique technology necessary for the production
of fuel cell module components are going to be formed, bipolar plate,
final plate, membrane electrode unit and catalysers used in the membrane
electrode unit are going to be produced and the unique fuel cell module
containing these prototype plates and membrane electrolyte unit will
have been developed.
Last Updated: 07.08.2009